From:
6/11/97 11:00 PM
Subject: MAX Digest - 11 Jun
1997To: Recipients of MAX digests
There are 4 messages totalling 204 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Ethernet Communications
2. brainwaves & CP
3.
4. brain waves and midi
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 14:02:00 -0000
From: pseudo
Subject: Ethernet Communications
I am working on a project in which we have custom software running on a
PC which we want to interface with MAX. We have contemplated a straight
MIDI connection (which seems a bit slow), a serial connection, and an
ethernet connection.
We would like to have as much bandwidth as possible so an ethernet
connection would be quite nice.
I was wondering if anybody had made this kind of connection work? There
were a couple posts from people who had MAX/MAX communication running
over ethernet, but how difficult is it to communicate to a different
program over the same sort of connection?
Or would we be better off using a straight serial connection and avoiding
all the hassle?
Thank You
[fletcher]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 19:50:15 +0100
From: "|K<"
Subject: brainwaves & CP
>I'm wanting to use brain-waves to generate midi.
>I've heard of a (Japanese ?) system that does it, but only in heresay
and I
>don't know its name etc..
>Anyone using I-Cube ... would it handle voltages of this order?
if you're not a do-it-yourselfer then you should probably check out a
company called IBVA (i think it stands for Interactive Brainwave
Visual Analysis). They've been selling EEG/mac interfaces with MAX
objects for control for about five years now (longer than any other
company attempting the same thing, to the best of my knowledge). I
believe they're based in NYC and do have a web page, though the
address escapes me [hit metacrawler with 'IBVA' and 'biofeedback' and
you'll probably find them. ]
my experience with musical creation from real-time brainwave analysis
has always been with much higher resolution data acquisition systems.
if you're serious about looking for specific ERP's then you need much
higher resolution than MIDI can offer (and a much more sophisticated
event/time structure scheme than MAX can offer [sorry guys]) on the
other hand, if you just want to do basic autocorrelated stuff, like
look for presence of alpha/beta waves and such, then 8bit will surely
give you ok results. if you are a do it yourselfer with a low budget,
you should look into a company called New Micros (they're in texas
somewhere, also have a web page). they make nice little inexpensive
data acquisition computers that're programmable in forth (very
convenient if you work in an environment like HMSL). for about $120
you can get one with 8 8bit A/D's on it and a serial interface [it
blows ICUBE away as far as cost efficiency is concerned [and will run
off batteries], but you do need to be able to hack it up to 14.4 baud
for MIDI transmission, but fortunately a very talented hacker and
composer [mark coniglio] posted the schematics on the web (and also an
optimized assembler for this little computer -- check out
http//panix.com/~troika/geekpages (or something around there--sorry,
I've been without web access for a few months now) for schematics on
how to turn a New Micros computer into an 8 input 8bit a/d MIDI input
device.
Then all you need to do is build the brainwave amplifiers (if you're a
novice with a soldering iron, building an amp with 500,000 times gain
(minimum) that is to be connected directly to your head is not a good
idea for a first project. however, if you know what you're doing,
it's not so hard (so long as you pose as a bio-tech company and
solicit companies like Burr-Brown for free samples for your
'prototype' (use your social engineering skills here and they'll mail
you very expensive ISO-AMPLIFIER chips for free) (the ISO [lation]
part of the amplifier is very important as the last thing you want to
do is apply that amount of gain directly into your skull . . . .thus
these things are quite expensive)
/* IMHO the idea of being able to accurately represent brainwaves
*/
/* with MIDI is just as absurd as the idea of being able to
accurately */
/* represent music with MIDI. RESPONDING to brainwaves using */
/* MIDI as a communication protocol is a very smart idea (and from
*/
/* the quoted post it seems as though you're on the right track)
*/
hope this gives you some sort of starting point. . .
> Of course, it's because of Urshan that we're all suffering. Every
time one
> or other side makes an advance in this arms race, the CP is made
more
> paranoid and breaks in ever more innocent circumstances for ever
more
> users.
there's no better way to defeat copy protection than to simply alter
the code that calls the CP routines. this means you have to be a
macsbug guru and understand PPC assembly code and how to disassemble
it. simple? no. I certainly can't do it. but it is an early warning
sign that the transition to information society is going to create a
much wider spectrum in the class system of our society (the knowledge
haves versus have-nots). it's really sad that anybody would make a
piece of software that self destructs, let alone 'taking down' other
soft/hardware with it.
dup swap drop. (rant over)
|K<
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 12:29:53 -0700
From: Peter Nyboer
Subject:
>Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 12:53:06 -0400
>From: Bob Gluck
>Subject: MaxSound
>
>I downloaded the files for MaxSound many months ago and only this week had
a
>chance to take a peek.
Sorry bob, this isn't an answer, just another question....I haven't heard
of MaxSound...What is it &where do I get it? (Don't you just love my
readiness to ignorantly consume???)
BTW, I was writing earlier about various problems/voodoo curses I was
having with setting up a recently purchased PMac 7100. I moved the entire
setup to a different room location because I discovered that the apartment
building's central electrical circuits were on the opposite side of the
wall where I had my computer. Since the move, things seem to be going a
bit more smoothly. Not to say that's why I was having midi problems, but I
certainly am getting less errors! What clued me in was the annoying
waviness that my monitor had that reminded me of a similar waviness I
experience due to some large light dimmers at work . So, the moral of the
story is: beware of E-Fields!!!!
Peter Nyboer
UCLA Extension, Visual Arts Lab
pnyboer@ucla.edu
http://128.97.119.66
(310) 859-7323
>> "The intergalactic phase of music touches
>> upon many points. For instance, everything
>> is everything and outside of that is
>> nothing. So in order to deal with the
>> infinity, I would have to deal with the
>> nothings and the everythings, of which each
>> one has its different potentials. Then,
>> after that, each one has it
>> multi-potentials; and after that each one
>> has its purposelessness, like the whole
>> infinity of the duality everything. There
>> is no purpose... because if purpose is
>> considered by some as an end, then
>> endlessness to others would mean without
>> purpose. Infinity, however purposeless,
>> does not hesitate to sponsor infinity
>> idea-projects." ---Sun Ra
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:03:43 +1000
From: David Rodger
Subject: Re: brain waves and midi
Jeremy wrote:
> I'm wanting to use brain-waves to generate midi.
> I've heard of a (Japanese ?) system that does it
I don't know about any Japanese system, but you'll find a catalog of
biosignal
devices at the following URL:
http://alt.medmarket.com/members/allied/biofeedback.html
I have no affiliation with this vendor. This is just a page I stumbled
across.
I have had the benefit of using one of the systems listed: the WaveRider.
I did not evaluate its EEG capabilities, but in general I found the device
unsatisfactory, mainly due to ergonomicfactors and lack of build quality.
The units I tried had been in Australia for some time and these things
might since have been improved. The good thing about WaveRider is that it
has MAX objects for the Mac version and plugs nicely into the environment.
Better known devices are the Biomuse and BodySynth. James McCartney and
Todd Winkler (Brown University) have these and both have been on this list.
They may care to share their opinions. I met Ed Severinghaus and Chris van
Rallte, the designers of BodySynth and Chris gave me a demo. I was
impressed.
Biomuse handles EEG, ECG, EMG and EOG. BodySynth handles only EMG (and
presumably EKG), so it would not suit Jeremy's purposes (if he is interested
only in brain waves).
Regards, David
musdr@lure.latrobe.edu.au
http://farben.latrobe.edu.au/d_rodger
------------------------------
End of MAX Digest - 11 Jun 1997
*******************************